


absent

by WerewolvesAreReal



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angst, Episode: s02e05 Amok Time, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Suicide, Suicide Notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-21 13:04:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20694002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WerewolvesAreReal/pseuds/WerewolvesAreReal
Summary: To my family, please relay the following message: I would not have reached the appointed place.





	absent

**Author's Note:**

> At some point, I intend to post a fic where Spock's response to his pon farr is to attempt suicide - and then, upon waking with his fever cured, fumble through reassuring his alarmed/horrified friends.  
In the meantime, you get this.   
Sorry.

Kirk glances over at the science station for the fourth time in ten minutes.

Ensign Collins is working diligently, by all appearances unbothered by the fact that she should have been relieved already. In another five minutes she will send a request for a replacement, but she shouldn't need one. This is Spock's shift, and Spock is rarely late.

Not 'never.' This is a starship, and Spock is the _Enterprise's _first-officer. Occasionally he is called away, unavoidably, to attend other duties. But usually he alerts the bridge-crew of his position. Kirk wouldn't be preoccupied with the problem if Spock hadn't been acting so _strangely _the past few days. Especially since Kirk refused his request to take leave on Vulcan.

Even the memory makes Kirk shift with guilt. In their years together Spock has only requested leave twice, both times to consult with scientists at a nearby starbase. He has never, Kirk is inclined to believe, requested leave for purely recreational reasons – he has never returned to Vulcan. It makes Kirk wonder if Spock lied when he asked about a potential 'family emergency'.

The replacement comes – young, cheerful Lieutenant Kimm, one of Spock's biologists – and Kirk makes a decision. He stands. “Sulu, take the bridge a moment.”

The pilot glances at him knowingly, but just says, “Aye, Sir.”

Kirk checks Spock's quarters first, but predictably no one answers the door. It would be very unlike Spock to oversleep. Next he checks the science labs, but he's not there either.

Kirk exits to the hallway and does what he _should _have done as soon as his first officer failed to appear. “Computer,” he asks. “Where is Commander Spock?”

The mechanical voice of the computer informs him, pleasantly, that_“Mr. Spock is not aboard the Enterprise.”_

What?

Kirk shakes his head. Unbidden, he finds himself thinking of the incident with Pike and the Talosians. Spock promised he would never again betray Kirk like that, but... “Computer,” he prompts again. “Are all shuttles accounted for?”

_“There are three shuttles currently docked in the bay area.”_

Right. For lack of anything better to do he keeps walking. There might be an issue with the computer, but his stomach is twisting. He keeps thinking about Spock on the bridge, his hands clenched tight behind his back. Kirk's casual refusal for shoreleave. Something about that moment was significant, he thinks, but why?

Kirk's path takes him to Spock's quarters. It's locked, which is unusual. Kirk enters a command override and enters.

The lights are dim; he has to activate them manually. When he does, he sighs with relief.

“Did you actually oversleep?” he calls, striding forward. But Spock, splayed supine and unmoving on his bed, doesn't respond.

Kirk hesitates by the partition separating Spock's resting-area and a small office space. His first officer has never been a heavy sleeper.

“Spock?” Kirk asks.

But he already knows there will be no answer.

He stumbles. The world spins. Fighting the horror welling in his chest, Kirk staggers to the wall and slams the intercom button with excess force. Then he stands frozen, warring with his initial impulse to call a medical team

Because the doctors can't do anything, can they?

“Lieutenant Uhura,” he says at last. “Clear the halls from Mr. Spock's quarters to sickbay. Send a security team to first officer's quarters.”

“Sir, please confirm; you want a _security_ team?”

“Yes,” he snaps. Restrains himself. “And tell Dr. McCoy to be prepared in Sickbay.”

This evidently fits her expectations better. “Yes, Sir.”

The connection breaks. Kirk closes his eyes and leans against the wall, just a moment. Allows himself a brief bit of weakness before his officers will see him.

Then he exhales. Straightens. And prepares to deliver the news.

* * *

McCoy is prepared for an emergency when they arrive. He has a cooler out – probably filled with a bag of T-negative blood, just in case – and a private room is already cleared. He starts forward as soon as he sees Spock held limp between two security officers.

He raises his medical scanner before Kirk can stop him.

Later, the noise McCoy releases will feature in his nightmares. A choked, disbelieving sound. The doctor jolts back, scanner falling uselessly to his side. He looks between Kirk and the body.

“Set him on the bed,” Kirk tells the uncomfortable security officers. They rush to lay Spock in the private room, then leave with alacrity. McCoy doesn't make a sound of protest, still frozen in the middle of Sickbay. Kirk takes a breath. “Join me once you're ready, Bones. We need to know what happened.”

McCoy only needs a moment. When he enters Kirk is standing next to the bed, one hand braced against the wall. He peers down at Spock's pale face. Searching for something – a hint, a clue. A sign of life.

“Jim,” says McCoy, and hesitates.

Kirk doesn't look at him. “The cause of death?”

And McCoy says, “I'm sorry.”

They both look at the pale hands, stained green. The forearms, sleeves torn and skin ripped apart from deliberate strokes.

“You couldn't have known,” McCoy says.

“I should have. I should have seen – I _knew _he was acting strange - “

“He's a Vulcan,” McCoy says, and they both flinch over the verb tense. The doctor barrels on anyway, “It's not like he would have shown an emotion, or talked to you even if he did. This is what happens when a whole planet tries to box away their feelings and lobotomize themselves - “

“Bones,” says Kirk. “Don't.”

McCoy falls silent. He sags back in his seat. Takes a deep breath. And he says again, “Hell, Jim. I'm sorry.”

* * *

In the halls people double-take as he passes. His face feels swollen, his eyes still stinging with tears shed and unshed.

Let them stare – he's not ashamed to grieve.

There has never been a soul worth more grief.

Uhura looks up as he enters the bridge, straightening when she sees his face.

“Sir?” she asks, then hesitates.

It's a question, an expression of mute concern: _Are you alright? What happened?_

Kirk can't look at her. He thinks of Spock, playing the Vulcan lyre while she weaves around the rec room and sings. They played together just last week, didn't they? First a few solemn pieces, then a series of made-up ditties once the lieutenant encouraged Spock to relax a bit. Uhura's voice was lovely.

Sulu steps away from the captain's seat with a quizzical glance. Kirk stands behind the chair and bends his weight against it, needing support. He presses the intercom button.

“This is the Captain speaking,” he says. Everyone on the bridge shifts around to look at him, except for Mr. Chekov checking coordinates. “It is my regret to say...”

He pauses.

The words sound so hollow, so useless. That can't possibly be the term for the ice in his veins, the hollowness in his chest. _Regret._

But the bridge crew is waiting.

The ship is waiting.

“It is my regret to inform you that this morning, First Officer Spock was found dead in his quarters. The cause of death has been ruled a suicide.”

The stillness on the bridge is suffocating. Peripherally, he is aware that Uhura has a hand clasped over her mouth; Sulu half-rises again from his seat, arm outstretched like he wants to do something. Help. Stop him.

Kirk plows through.

“Lieutenant-Commander Scott will serve as acting First Officer,” he says. His voice does not waver. “There will be a meeting between the senior science officers at 1700 hours to reallocate duties and arrangements during the upcoming mission to Altair.” A subtle way of saying, yes; work will continue. The mission will continue as planned, as though nothing has changed. “There will be a funeral held at 1200 hours in two days time, after which the body will be returned to Vulcan.”

His hand twitches over the com-button.

“...Kirk, out.”

The bridge is silent.

Kirk steps back from the center console. The officers around the bridge stare at him without comprehension. The captain looks at first one officer, then another, and finally settles on Lieutenant DeSalle at engineering, a man stunned but not quite grieving.

“Mr. DeSalle, you have the con,” he says.

And then, like a coward, he flees.

* * *

Afterward, Kirk clears out Spock's room himself.

It's already been scrutinized by Security, to ensure that Spock's death wasn't somehow coerced. McCoy analyzed his scans with an equally obsessive fervor. But no one really expected signs of foul play, and there have been no surprises.

So now there's just this: the quiet room, neat stacks of clothing that need to be taken to the quartermaster, padds that will be wiped and moved into storage, esoteric Vulcan artifacts to be packed away and sent to their first-officer's homeworld. But it feels like blasphemy to move anything. Spock would never say so, but he hates it when people disrupt his careful systems of organization.

There is only one thing out of place. One of the security officers, Mr. Lewis, found it first. Kirk sits down in the quiet room and reads the note yet again. At some point he will have to place a call to Vulcan, hunt down Spock's parents to give them the news – and pass on this message.

If it can even be called that.

The note starts with the simple salutation, _Captain, _in logical anticipation that Kirk will receive the note. Kirk wonders if Spock imagined all of this – Kirk himself finding the body. The announcement. A cold body in Sickbay, and nothing else. Surely he must have thought about what he was doing. He must have known.

He keeps getting stuck on that address, _Captain._

The note continues. _“I regret that I must leave you without answers,” _Spock has written, with his typical skill for understatement. _“Our service together has been deeply fulfilling. Please note that I act now of my own will; yet were the circumstances different, I would be honored to remain at your side.”_

Round and round Kirk keeps reading those words, trying to find a hint, a clue. It doesn't make sense. But maybe he's grasping at straws. Eventually, Kirk can only reach one conclusion.

Spock appreciated their friendship, and he enjoyed his work – but not enough to continue to live.

The note finishes, _“I have already made the necessary legal arrangements; you will find my files on the desk, which should assist those officers who will take over my duties. I have only one request. To my family, please relay the following message:_

_ I would not have reached the appointed place."_

Kirk closes his eyes.

It's a pathetic note. Yet there is something there – a tone of regret between the lines. Like Spock didn't want to do this. But it was inevitable. And that hurts more than anything. What could have driven him to this?

Kirk will probably never know. Spock is the best friend he's ever had, and he wonders – with an ache in his chest that feels like the pang of death, like a shadow of Spock come to haunt him – what their friendship could have looked like in ten, twenty years. A future gone, blotted out by one decision.

Before he exits the room Kirk pauses by the bookcase and sees an open novel stretched out on Spock's desk. A beaten paperback edition of _A Tale of Two Cities, _lent to him by Kirk. Spock thought physical books were obsolete, but for Kirk's sake he would read them anyway.

There's a bookmark left halfway through the pages. The rest is unfinished.

Kirk picks up the book, and he goes.


End file.
